


Ghosts

by ianmalcolmreynolds



Category: The Lost Island of Tamarind - Nadia Aguiar, The Tamarind trilogy - Nadia Aguiar
Genre: Can Take Place Any Time Before or During Book 3 (Great Wave of Tamarind), Canon Compliant, F/M, Ghosts of the Past - Freeform, Granny Pearl (mentioned), Guilty Helix, Helix Misses The Nelsons, Mami Nelson (mentioned), Moderate PTSD, Papi Nelson (mentioned), Post Book 2 (Secrets of Tamarind), Regrets of the Past, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:22:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24695956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ianmalcolmreynolds/pseuds/ianmalcolmreynolds
Summary: After Helix strikes out on his own, he begins to realize he no longer enjoys the solitude as he used to and receives some unexpected visits from a past life.
Relationships: Helix (Tamarind series)/Maya Nelson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone somehow found this and read it, (first of all thank you and I appreciate you) please please PLEASE read the "Tamarind" trilogy by Nadia Aguiar. The target age range might be a little young, but it is a series I've grown up with and adored for about a decade now. I picked up the first book at a book sale about ten years ago and plowed through it in like two days. About nine years later, I found out it was a trilogy. I managed to get my hands on the other two books and read those in a week. Aguiar is the greatest descriptive writer I've ever had the pleasure of reading, and she does a phenomenal job building the atmosphere and immersing the reader in this tropical forbidden world. She builds upon what she created with each book and creates a magical world, but never breaks her own rules. Helix is also one of my favorite fictional characters of all time and has such a great character arc, from an introverted orphan who reluctantly accepts any company to a young man so haunted by the people he missed. I can't recommend this series enough to anyone, and if you somehow found this and haven't read the books yet, please do.

Helix had never been one to believe in ghosts. He believed in a world that was straightforward and simple. Hunt or be hunted. Kill or be killed. Adapt or die. He had never had time to worry about things that probably didn’t exist, like luck or karma, and especially ghosts.

But Helix had ghosts. There was no other way to explain it.

Helix hadn’t seen the Nelson children in seven years, ever since he had jumped off the Pamela Jane after it sailed across the Blue Line for the final time. He had swam back to shore and watched the ship and its owners disappear from Tamarind and his life forever.

Or so he thought.

The Blue Line was supposed to have solidified behind them. Tamarind should now be closed off from The Outside, no one could get through. And yet, wherever he looked, they were there.

Every old lady in town was Granny Pearl, especially when they were baking or hanging clothes on the line to dry. Every whistle or hum was her doing the housework and meandering around the kitchen at home.

No, not at home. The Nelson house. He was home now, in Tamarind. At least, that’s what he told himself. That's what he had to tell himself. He was born in Tamarind, raised in Tamarind, his family was from here. Why would he consider the Nelson house home? Why would he long to be on The Outside?

He saw Mami and Papi, no, Marisol and Peter, in married couples, when a local woman said he was too skinny, when one of the old sailors called him “son”. He could see Peter whenever a man wore his glasses on the rim of his nose, dangling down as if almost forgotten, Marisol whenever a woman sat reading a book with one leg over the other.

It was the three children that he saw the most, though.

He saw Penny in every baby babbling in someone’s arms, reaching out to touch the face of another. That childish curiosity really took hold in Penny's life, she was always reaching for things she didn't know, longing to understand them, attacking the unknown with positivity and wonder. He had actually hated babies before he had met the Nelson children. Now, his heart ached for one, his baby. That’s how she felt to him, blood or not. His baby sister. His responsibility.

 _Baby_ , he scoffed to himself. She would almost be a teenager now. He blinked tears out of his eyes. He had missed so much of her life. At least she had Seagrape. That stubborn parrot would die before it let something happen to Penny. Just as Helix wanted it. Just as he would do.

He felt Simon’s ghost every time he learned something new. The younger boy’s fascination with learning and the unknown had been admirable, and the way his face lit up when he learned a new thing had warmed Helix inside. Whenever he heard his name now, he half expected to turn and see Simon running up with a new animal or discovery, unable to contain his excitement. Helix hadn’t appreciated that enough. He tried to learn something new every day in Simon’s honor.

Most of all, Maya haunted him.

Helix saw her in crowds sometimes, a face on the edge of his vision. Whenever he caught that little glimpse, he always dropped everything he was doing and ran after her, but she was never there, he was always running to empty air. He often asked himself what she would think of him, what he was doing and who he was.

He could still hear her voice in his head sometimes, clear as day, commenting on his activities. Those same little sarcastic comments and backhanded compliments that used to drive him insane. When he felt particularly inspired, he would respond, often even had full conversations with her. He always found himself enjoying talking to her more than anyone here in Tamarind. He guessed some things never did change. Occasionally, when his concentration lapsed, he responded to her out loud, which always earned at least one curious glance, but he would just smile politely and hustle out of sight.

He couldn’t even look other women in the eye because they were different. They weren’t enough. They weren’t her. He couldn’t even close his eyes without seeing her anymore. She was always beautiful in his mind, just as she had been before. He saw the others, too, Pearl and Mami and Papi and Simon and Seagrape and Penny, but he always settled on Maya. He had every motion and detail memorized. The way she bit her lip when she was thinking or the furrow in her brow. The warmth and kindness in her brown eyes held him captive. They always had.

When he had first seen the Nelson children, wandering around on one of the Lesser Islands, he had been annoyed, amused at their ignorance. A teenage girl, her young brother, and a pudgy baby, wandering around in circles and clearly lost. He often asked himself why he didn’t leave, why he hadn’t moved on. He had met people before, and rarely had he ever kept an eye on them for more than a few moments.

However, even then, Helix thought, he knew the Nelsons were different. When he dropped to the jungle floor and found himself in the crosshairs of those brown eyes for the first time, he knew he would never be the same.

The memories of his five years with them hit him at different times. Finding and losing and finding them, over and over again, in so many different ways. Some days, it was their first adventure, from sneaking Maya into the palace, her saving him in Maracoiral, the trek up the mountain, rescuing Simon and Penny and finding Mami and Papi. Other times, it was the years with them on the mainland. The return to Tamarind, taking down Red Coral, the caves, the boat he jumped off, those final days haunted him most of all. His final memories. He spent more time with the Nelsons in his head than with those around him.

His favorite memory, however, had always been the pool on the mountain, only a few weeks after meeting them. It had just been him and Maya for days after they lost Simon and Penny. She was stressed about losing her family, and, just a few days before, had been ready to kill him at the thought of him potentially having turned them over. They had been tired, angry, and pushed past any limits they thought they had.

However, when they were in that pool, all of it melted away. The stress, the pain, the ache, all of the holes in his life were filled for a minute as he wrestled with Maya under the water. When they surfaced, panting and faces inches apart, he had gazed into those brown eyes and known for the first time in his life what it was like to love a person. It had scared him then, but it only hurt now. He would give anything to take himself back to that day, bring back the fear and take away the pain he now had.

Helix had never been one to believe in ghosts. But he had his own personal ones. And he would give anything and everything possible in order to be with them again.


End file.
